In order to become more independent from American big tech companies, SURF is investigating the possibilities offered by the European NextCloud. An initial successful trial is being scaled up: from a few dozen to two thousand users.
(Photo: Taylor Vick via Unsplash)
Switching from American clouds to European services, independent of the big tech giants. Digital sovereignty, is that possible? That is what ICT cooperative SURF, the partnership in which educational institutions jointly purchase their ICT products, is investigating. The cooperative is expanding its test with the European NextCloud to two thousand users, it writes on its website.
Since February, several dozen scientists, including two at TU Delft, have been trialling the German software maker’s service, that offers applications that you already know from Microsoft and Google, such as video calling, word processing and email.
Users can sign up for SURF’s larger-scale trial. They will work in teams of at least twenty people to discover how they like collaborating in NextCloud. Initially, this will be a one-year trial period. Three-quarters of the costs will be covered by the ICT cooperative.
Everything you need
One of two TU researchers already working with NextCloud is Seda Gürses. She says in an email to Delta that her team is very happy with the software. “It did not have the bloat that MS Teams has but all the functionality one needs. We are a big fan of the Etherpad add-on. It is our replacement for all those times people throw open Google Docs and move their whole team to an environment that was not made for education but for ad tracking.”
Gürses believes that NextCloud’s design is a better fit for the TU than the ‘sticky’ Microsoft. “NextCloud’s design is very much designed towards organizations or teams with more flexible structures or autonomy. I find it a better fit for educational institutions which have decentralised structures and a public mandate. Microsoft, on the other hand, pushes us into the product logic of corporate software made for hierarchical business organizations.”
Not yet a scalable, robust product
The results of the initial trial are positive, according to SURF. Besides that, SURF has successfully rolled out NextCloud internally. However, according to IT director Erik Scherff, it remains to be seen whether NextCloud is a viable replacement for Microsoft applications on a large scale. It is still rarely used, he said in an interview with Delta in early October. “The company barely has a support desk. It is thus not yet a scalable, robust product for the long term.”
‘I hope what started with NextCloud moves forward to adopting other software that fit our institutional vision and mandate’
Gürses hopes that the trial is the beginning of more. “I hope what started with NextCloud moves forward to adopting other software that fit our institutional vision and mandate, rather than the current model of folding activities at the university into standard business software. NextCloud is an opportunity to break out of this rigid space we are currently stuck in.”
TU Delft is not alone in feeling the need for digital sovereignty in the world of education and research. On Tuesday, the House of Representatives unanimously voted in favour of a motion on the subject. In it, they called on Education Minister Gouke Moes to work with universities and colleges to combat dependence on Big Tech. The motion’s sponsors, D66 and GroenLinks-PvdA, believe that the government should work together with educational institutions on a structural basis to achieve this.
Comments are closed.